{"id":39,"date":"2006-09-17T19:00:29","date_gmt":"2006-09-18T02:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nerdylorrin.net\/anneb\/?p=39"},"modified":"2006-09-17T22:29:10","modified_gmt":"2006-09-18T05:29:10","slug":"im-a-straphanger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nerdylorrin.net\/anneb\/?p=39","title":{"rendered":"I&#8217;m a Straphanger"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"ds-list\">Definition:<\/div>\n<div class=\"ds-list\"><strong>1. <\/strong> One who grips a hanging strap or similar device for support while riding as a passenger on a bus or subway.<\/div>\n<div class=\"ds-list\"><strong>2. <\/strong> One who uses public transportation.<\/div>\n<p><script>hm();Sources=Sources | 2;<\/script><\/p>\n<p><em>(Courtesy of The American Heritage\u00ae Dictionary of the English Language)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It was really hard for me to sell my Jeep.  I loved that Liberty.  Thankfully I sold it to a friend!  Other than loving that specific vehicle, I really looked forward to not having a car to deal with when we made the decision to move to NYC.  First of all, we&#8217;re saving about $500 a month &#8211; that takes into consideration two unlimited monthly metro passes.  I can only imagine how much money we would be saving if Girts and I had long commutes when we lived in Seattle.  As I live here, I learn other benefits to being a straphanger:<\/p>\n<p>1) great people watching &#8211; I can&#8217;t even begin to chronicle the funny situations I&#8217;ve witnessed on the subway.  One particularly funny scene&#8230; late one night an older, somewhat unkempt man was sleeping on the subway and kept moving his leg back and forth, like he couldn&#8217;t control it.  At the next stop a young, very well-groomed man sat at a seat on the row perpendicular to the older man.  The older man&#8217;s leg kept bumping the younger man&#8217;s leg. The younger man made these faces like you wouldn&#8217;t believe, but he didn&#8217;t move even though there were plenty of empty seats.  Another man, who was sitting behind the older man, did get up and move after the older man head-butted him from behind.  The greasy hair inspired a hilarious look of disgust.<\/p>\n<p>2) if people-watching isn&#8217;t your thing&#8230;reading and iPods are also a popular subway activity<\/p>\n<p>3) no worries about drinking and driving &#8211; Girts and I have been out late on numerous occasions and we didn&#8217;t have to worry about who needed to stop drinking when.  In my case, if I was driving, I wouldn&#8217;t be able to drink at all.<\/p>\n<p>4) no worries about where to park<\/p>\n<p>5) no maintenance  &#8211; no trips for oil changes, tire rotation, tune-ups, and no need to pay anything for the above maintenance.<\/p>\n<p>6) limited contribution to global warming &#8211; you know mass transit and all<\/p>\n<p>7) better legs &#8211; as convenient as the subway system in NYC is, I&#8217;m still forced to walk more, which means I&#8217;m in better shape<\/p>\n<p>8) no gym fees &#8211; see above.  No need to join a gym if you&#8217;re walking a lot.  The four flights of stairs we climb to get to our apartment help, too!<\/p>\n<p>9) no car accidents &#8211; my family has this horrible habit of worrying about people getting in car accidents.   I no longer have to worry about Girts colliding with a drunk driver on his way home from work.<\/p>\n<p>10) it&#8217;s a passive commute &#8211; this means that in addition to being able to people watch, read, and listen to music, there&#8217;s less stress.  No worrying about traffic, other drivers, or running out of gas.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been without my car since June 11th.  In fact, I haven&#8217;t driven since then.  And I have to say I haven&#8217;t missed it.  I thought I would at some point, but I really don&#8217;t.  This summer I worried that when I finally started school and had to be somewhere at a certain time, I would miss my car.  I do kind of miss the three minute commute, but my commute now gets me out into the busy city of New York and the route I take to my classes leads me through Washington Square Park, one of my favorite places in the city.  So I guess that means good riddance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Definition: 1. One who grips a hanging strap or similar device for support while riding as a passenger on a bus or subway. 2. One who uses public transportation. (Courtesy of The American Heritage\u00ae Dictionary of the English Language) It was really hard for me to sell my Jeep. I loved that Liberty. Thankfully I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdylorrin.net\/anneb\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdylorrin.net\/anneb\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdylorrin.net\/anneb\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdylorrin.net\/anneb\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdylorrin.net\/anneb\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdylorrin.net\/anneb\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdylorrin.net\/anneb\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdylorrin.net\/anneb\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdylorrin.net\/anneb\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}